That is to say, he had gone down to the boathouse and embarked in his
skiff. He had no notion of leaving the north country, but was willing to
pull up stakes and proceed a few miles up the river, where he would
negotiate with Ojeeg for Keego.
Since she had accused him of selling his conscience, it was about time
she knew who employed him. In fact it was about time that Chase Mahan
should get acquainted with his future daughter.
He would write to his father that the silica belonged to a Miss Rich,
who preferred to deal with principals rather than with subordinates.
That might bring his father north. And there could be no harm in leaving
the age of Miss Rich to be discovered by the grizzled engineer himself.
Some day she would be no longer young, and as he meditatively made his
way across the water he lifted up his voice and sang about it—about
silver threads among the gold. He knew only one stanza, but it was not
really necessary that he should know more than the first word. That
happened to be “Darling,” a word which can be sung by any voice and at
any pitch. Marvin sang it at a pitch of about a hundred and fifty-five,
and as the wind happened to be right it reached a certain girl and made
her cry.
Meanwhile the doctor, having finished his weeding, had come down to the
river to wash his hands.
As he bowed his white head beside the dock he heard the sound of oars,
and perceived that an old friend was coming in.
“Bo-jou, Black Hawk. How is the Red Leaf this morning?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since yesterday. But I stopped for
your mail on the way down.”
Dr. Rich carried the mail up to the house unopened. As he entered, his
keen ear caught a sound, muffled and piteous.
The door of Jean’s bedroom was closed. He knocked, and, receiving no
reply, entered. She was lying face downward on her white camp-bed,
sobbing as she had sobbed that April day three years ago. He sat down
beside her and smoothed her hair.
“I’m afraid that my little girl has been having words with our guest.”
She lifted herself on her elbow and began to speak, though her breath
came in short catches, like a child’s when it has stopped crying but
cannot control its throat.
“Daddy, please go with him and see him off.”
“What! Is he leaving?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Did you send him away?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“What had the wretch done?”
“He pitied me.”
The old man was silent a moment, and then murmured, “O Eros, Eros, thou
who blindest! But before I go to see this criminal off, we had better
look at the mail. Here’s the statement of royalties. Please open it.”
Jean controlled herself and obeyed, but she looked so long and blankly
at the account that her father spoke again.
“Will it be as much as last year?”
“No, daddy, it will be less than two hundred—eight cents less.”
The news was evidently a blow, but the old man took it quietly.
“Jean, considering how many lads are writing text-books, eight cents
less than two hundred dollars is a wonderful showing.”
“Father, it is just so wonderful that you’ll have to put the mortgage
on. You’d better do it today and be done with it.”
“My brave little woman, I will. Pledges are the inevitable daughters of
loss, as Epicharmus remarked long ago before Roman mortgages ruined the
world.”
He arose and went to his room for his papers. “Good-by, my comfort. I’ll
see Marvin off and be home on the mail boat tomorrow.”
He started for the door, but stopped beside the old couch.
“I’ve had that couch fifty years, and it feels like a map of Macedonia.
Do you suppose that haircloth can be bought nowadays?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Well, I’m going to take a sample and find out.” Kneeling, he clipped
away a little triangle. He put it in his pocket, kissed her good-by, and
went down to the pier. There lay the Kittiwake.
“Marvin, I wish to go to town.”
“I was just coming up, sir, to ask the favor of your company.”
The doctor stepped aboard, and for some time not a word was said. They
ran so lightly over the mirror that they seemed four men. All four were
still, shadows fleeting between two heavens.
“Dr. Rich, last evening I proposed and was refused.”
“Naturally. I warned you that you must give her time. Under the
circumstances, I don’t think you had better leave us today.”
“I’m not intending to leave. May I ask at what price you value your
estate?”
“Three thousand.”
“Doctor, this morning she refused ten thousand for her island.”
“Ah! Did you explain why you wanted it?”
“No, I’m acting under sealed orders.”
“I’m afraid, my son, that your orders are as transparent as this water.
Your principal is a steel man. I will reason with her this evening.”
“Thank you. Meantime I shall be obliged if you will give me a brief
option on your place.”
“I will do so. But speaking of islands, wouldn’t the one ahead of us
serve your purpose?”
“I intend to buy that one, too.”
“Marvin, I clean forgot Keego has graves on it.”
“So I understand. I should hate to have Ojeeg sell me his graves in
order to buy liquor.”
“Never fear. You couldn’t buy them.”
“But wouldn’t he sell them to give his son a medical education?”
“I doubt it. Ojeeg can go into the bush in January and sleep on the
ground, but when he comes into his house, he seals the windows and
huddles over the stove. When his dearest child was very low with
tuberculosis, he brought the jossakeed and let the old fool treat her by
incantations. The girl of course died, and Ojeeg’s faith in doctors died
with her.”
“Might not his wife or his mother help me?”
“They would if they could, but they have no influence. I have known his
mother half a century. She was a very fine woman in her youth. I
remember—”
The doctor stopped short. His old blue eyes turned a little to the west,
as if seeking out some spot on the water.
“Marvin, your family name is Celtic for Bear. In the days of Agricola
your folks were the Orsini of Britain. Now the Bear is sacred to the
Ojibway, and especially sacred to the Crane totem. Address the old woman
as the Bright River, and tell her that, being a Bear, you have come for
your fish.” Marvin laughed outright at this sudden access of craftiness
in a man who adored infinite honesty.
“I’ll obey orders, sir, but suppose the charm fails to work?”
“In that case,” said the old man, drawing the bit of haircloth from his
pocket, “give her this and say that I should be glad if you might own
Keego.”
“No other message?”
“No.”
Dr. Rich relapsed into silence, reflecting that he need not mortgage his
property for a few days yet.
But Marvin, holding the bit of cloth beneath his thumb and looking
straight ahead at the channel, had already forgotten Keego. He seemed to
see on the smooth surface of the water the pattern of the cloth
enlarged. Then the woof disappeared, leaving only the parallel lines of
the warp.
The cloth owed its permanence to the fact that some horse had extracted
silica out of oats. Might not the arrangement of silicon atoms in silica
be like a hair? Quartz has one atom of silicon to two of oxygen, and it
was occurring to him that it stays put by a thread of silicon atoms
linked above and below with oxygen. That meant fourteen outer electrons
firmly linked with eight. Until he could submit this structure to the
test he decided to bind each silicon atom with two added silicon
electrons, and then add two oxygens. He thought that would hold the
structure a few centuries, or at least until he got back to his tent.
“Do you really wish to go to town, doctor?”
“No.”
“Where shall I take you?”
“Why, if you’ve nothing better to do, I should like to revisit a scene
that I have not beheld in thirty years. Up the Echo river there’s a
bastion of granite that glows in the evening as if all the rains since
Deucalion had not been able to quench the molten rock.”